“Why not?”
“I just don’t have it, and it looks like we’ll have to wait,” Sal said as she sat in the corner of the elevator.
Harmon shook his head and turned on his phone’s flashlight.He sat on the opposite side and rested his back against the mirrored wall.“I never expected to be in this predicament.”
Sal rolled her eyes.“Trust me, this is not how I imagined dying either.”
“Who said anything about dying?”he snapped.
“Scared?”she smirked, then turned away.“There are worse things than dying in an elevator,” she muttered.Harmon’s reflection in the mirrored walls grew pensive.Did she really just mutter that out loud for him to hear?
“By the way,” she said, badly wanting to change the subject.“I don’t think Willow or I will join you at the other museums.We want to maximize our travel budget.”
Harmon looked at her, appearing as though he was considering her statement.“You realize this just gives me the edge?”
She considered the weight of what she was about to say.Then she looked at him, the soft light from his phone probably masking her expression with unfavorable shadows in the dimness of the malfunctioning elevator.“You’re forgetting that you’re not the only one with perks.There are many ways one can get what they want if they’re hungry enough for it.”
Just as Harmon was about to respond, the light flickered on and a voice emanated from the speaker.“Bzzt!Ma'am…sir…there was a power interruption and technical issue…bzzt…we will get you out in fifteen minutes…bzzt!”
Fifteen minutes more in this elevator with Harmon Moon was too long, but it was enough time for Sal to do what she had in mind.She grabbed a pen and a clean sheet of white paper from her tote bag and wrote the details for some stomach medicine.Her PRC license in the Philippines was still active, and she was fully capable of prescribing medication for a severe stomach flu.She didn’t know if she was doing this out of charity or simply because she wanted to prove a point, but she wrote the prescription anyway and signed it with her doctor’s signature.
In less than fifteen minutes, the elevator jolted and resumed its descent.As soon as it opened on the ground floor, Sal offered Harmon the prescription.He took the paper without hesitation.Good, she thought.So without another word, she stepped off the elevator.
“What’s this?”he called out while still in the elevator.
“Noblesse oblige…” she said, sporting a wry smile.“I told you, you’re not the only one with earned perks.”She looked over her shoulder.“You’re welcome, by the way.”She walked away imagining the elevator doors closing at his dumbfounded face, and maybe they did.
Chapter Nineteen
Rafa and Aveline
RAFA
Medina, Washington
Themorningafterhisvisit with Vicky, Rafa answered Willow’s call only to hear Sal’s voice.“My love,” she said.
“Sal?Why are you using Willow’s phone?”
“My phone is missing,” she said with a huff.
“Where do you think you lost it?”
She explained how it happened and how upset she was that her favorite leather tote bag was now damaged with a large slice.“I’ll try to get a replacement if the budget allows.We can call each other using Willow’s phone for now, and maybe email?”she suggested.
“Sure,” Rafa said.He would adjust.
In the days that followed, their email exchanges became longer but less frequent, and he shared everything that had happened to him so far: the family business had some major operational changes, he had to close their Portland operations, and that St.Stephenshire, apparently, had supernatural origins.
When he was writing one of his emails to Sal about the topics in the black books, he paused.Could there really be some sort of witchcraft behind the town’s origins?No sane man could believe in anything such as witches, magic, and spells.This was real life, not some kind ofHarry Potterrevival, right?
By the time he parked at his home in Medina, his head was swarming with questions, so much so that when Aveline greeted him at breakfast, he didn’t say as much as a terse hello.
The small diamond studs she wore sparkled as she cut through her morning toast.“You’re doing it again,” she said in a flat, sarcastic tone.
“Doing what?”
“Getting lost in thought.”She smirked.“What’s gotten you obsessive this time, brother?”
